{"id":107041,"date":"2022-10-14T12:07:12","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T16:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=107041"},"modified":"2022-10-14T12:10:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T16:10:41","slug":"global-food-crisis-lets-move-from-despair-to-hope-and-action-urges-un-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2022\/10\/global-food-crisis-lets-move-from-despair-to-hope-and-action-urges-un-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Global food crisis: Let\u2019s move from \u2018despair to hope and action\u2019, urges Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

14 October – In the face of the growing hunger crisis, the head of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Food and Agriculture Organization stressed on Friday, ahead of World Food Day<\/a>, the need to \u201charness the power of solidarity and collective action\u201d to build a sustainable world with enough to eat for everyone.<\/p>\n

Director-General QU Dongyu led the ceremony at\u00a0FAO<\/a>\u00a0Headquarters in Rome, declaring that with food security worsening, and risk of serious levels of hunger in Asia and Africa at an all-time high, the world must \u201cleave no one behind\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018A challenging moment\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sending a special\u00a0message<\/a>\u00a0to the event, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was taking place \u201cat a challenging moment for global food security\u201d.<\/p>\n

A staggering three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet; the war in Ukraine has triggered surging food, fertilizer, and energy prices; and the most vulnerable are being battered by the pandemic, climate crisis, environmental degradation, conflict, and deepening inequalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of people affected by hunger has more than doubled in the past three years\u201d, he said, adding that \u201calmost a million people are living in famine conditions, with starvation and death a daily reality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Be the change<\/strong><\/p>\n

Referring to this year\u2019s theme,\u00a0Leave no one behind.\u00a0Better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life<\/em>, Mr. Guterres said that farmers need to access reasonably priced fertilizers to ensure enough food next year.<\/p>\n

Governments, scientists, and civil society need to work together to make nutritious diets available and affordable for everyone and financial institutions must increase support to developing countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether, we must move from despair to hope and action\u201d the Secretary-General said. \u201cOn World Food Day and every day, I call on you to be part of the change\u201d.<\/p>\n

Multiple threats<\/strong><\/p>\n

The commemoration took place at a time when global food security faces multiple threats, pushing food, energy and fertilizer prices sky high amidst climate crisis and long-standing conflicts.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the knock-on effect of COVID continues to highlight how interconnected economies and lives have become, as\u00a0970,000 people risk famine<\/a>\u00a0in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.<\/p>\n

FAO\u2019s latest\u00a0The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World<\/a>\u00a0report illuminates that hunger worldwide is on the rise.<\/p>\n

Raising their voices<\/strong><\/p>\n

A message read on behalf of Pope Francis\u00a0reminded<\/a>\u00a0that people \u201care not just numbers, data or an endless stream of statistics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD<\/a>)\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0the day should be a call to ramp up action to \u201chelp small-scale farmers in rural areas,\u00a0who supply food to their communities and countries\u2026despite inequality, vulnerability, and poverty\u201d.<\/p>\n

World Food Programme (WFP<\/a>) chief David Beasley described the food availability crisis as his \u201cgravest concern\u201d, saying \u201cthe world must open its eyes to this unprecedented global food crisis and act now to stop it spinning out of control\u201d.<\/p>\n

Celebrating the day<\/strong><\/p>\n

Events<\/a>\u00a0in Rome included an exhibit featuring photos taken from space by European Space Agency astronaut and FAO Goodwill Ambassador Thomas Pesquet, which highlights the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

FAO\u2019s first-ever\u00a0Achievement Awards<\/a>\u00a0were handed out to people whose actions are transforming agrifood systems, and a Junior World Food Day event was held with a host of\u00a0Food Heroes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Awareness-raising events on the global fight against hunger will continue to take centre stage in the coming week.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, FAO\u2019s\u00a0Hand in Hand initiative<\/a>\u00a0continues to work to accelerate agrifood system transformation by\u00a0eradicating poverty<\/a>,\u00a0ending hunger<\/a>, and\u00a0reducing inequalities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It aims to promote decent rural employment, foster gender equality, social protection, end child labour, and support rural and Indigenous Peoples – custodians of much of the earth\u2019s biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to watch the ceremony.<\/p>\n

Source: Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ News<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 October – In the face of the growing hunger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363,"featured_media":107042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7511,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-zero-hunger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}